My podium! After 20 rounds, I thought it was never going to happen - I won't have a podium-less season!

That's really all the positives I can take out of this; I've gone 3 podiums out of 4 Abu Dhabi races, and I was really hoping this would be a good one to send me off to a hopefully far more competitive season next year in 2018. Congratulations to mcdo, and TypingChicane - with two second places and mcdo retiring, you're surely going to be the one to beat for us all next year!

Predicting a Ricciardo DNF was bold, but it turned out to be the right call in the end!

Would be interesting to see different kind of stats for the whole season, don´t you think so?

Like...1. table of wins - out of all gp winners who scored how many wins2. max points scored in a gp - top10 highest scorers for instance3. least points scored in a gp - bottom 104. best spot on person - like title "apprentice" for a person who predicted most 25´ers in a gp & title "oracle" for the same for season overall5. driver who has brought on the most points to predicters & then ofcourse opposite also - racer who has been the most useless to put into top10 prediction (this could be hard one to extract from your data, pokerman, depending on how you have stored it).

Would be interesting to see different kind of stats for the whole season, don´t you think so?

5. driver who has brought on the most points to predicters & then ofcourse opposite also - racer who has been the most useless to put into top10 prediction (this could be hard one to extract from your data, pokerman, depending on how you have stored it).

I'm guessing the worst driver to predict is Stroll, with 7 top 10 finishes, then Grosjean and Hulkenberg with 8...Alonso did have only 5, but with Honda reliability is he worth a pick?Best must be Hamilton with 20 top 10 finishes out of 20, 9 of them wins..

But just the 3 points in the end then, eh? Is that the closest ever finish?

It's not - my first year in the competition (2014) the gap was just one point:

Quote:

1. pokerman 27342. davidb23 2733 3. Bat014 2729

Yeah that was squeaky bum time.

I could have made it easier for myself by predicting Hamilton to win like I normally did but I was more concerned with him being Champion so I didn't put all my eggs in the same basket sort to speak, otherwise I would have won by 8 points, still close though.

Would be interesting to see different kind of stats for the whole season, don´t you think so?

Like...1. table of wins - out of all gp winners who scored how many wins2. max points scored in a gp - top10 highest scorers for instance3. least points scored in a gp - bottom 104. best spot on person - like title "apprentice" for a person who predicted most 25´ers in a gp & title "oracle" for the same for season overall5. driver who has brought on the most points to predicters & then ofcourse opposite also - racer who has been the most useless to put into top10 prediction (this could be hard one to extract from your data, pokerman, depending on how you have stored it).

... and something else. Ideas?

That would keep me busy until Christmas.

By the way Marck do you realise that you incurred 123 penalty points this season without which you would have finished 3rd just 11 points behind the Champion, mcdo.

Would be interesting to see different kind of stats for the whole season, don´t you think so?

Like...1. table of wins - out of all gp winners who scored how many wins2. max points scored in a gp - top10 highest scorers for instance3. least points scored in a gp - bottom 104. best spot on person - like title "apprentice" for a person who predicted most 25´ers in a gp & title "oracle" for the same for season overall5. driver who has brought on the most points to predicters & then ofcourse opposite also - racer who has been the most useless to put into top10 prediction (this could be hard one to extract from your data, pokerman, depending on how you have stored it).

... and something else. Ideas?

Pokerman, if you have these in an excel file, I am more than happy to pull some analysis together - wouldn't take too long - drop me a PM.

I feel now is the time to talk about default points for competitors that forget to select an entry, first of all what is the consensus for doing this, secondly what penalty should be applied, lowest score -1 point, or lowest score -25 points?

I feel now is the time to talk about default points for competitors that forget to select an entry, first of all what is the consensus for doing this, secondly what penalty should be applied, lowest score -1 point, or lowest score -25 points?

My latest thought is to base it on the median (ie middle) score in a race divided by 2. So for Abu Dhabi as there were 31 entrants the median is the 16th (okay joint 15th) which was 158, /2 = 79.As the last genuine score was 113, 79 seems a fair stay-in-the-game penalty. As the median reflects the range of race scores it will cope with high or low scoring races where - say last -20 - would sometimes be worse than others.

I also think that to qualify for the default, and to prove the player is still interested, they should contact Pokerman and apologise for not submitting an entry in time, and do this before the race results are published.

ps: how about allowing entries after qualifying, with say 35pts penalty? You could still set a deadline of say 2 hours before race start..

I feel now is the time to talk about default points for competitors that forget to select an entry, first of all what is the consensus for doing this, secondly what penalty should be applied, lowest score -1 point, or lowest score -25 points?

My latest thought is to base it on the median (ie middle) score in a race divided by 2. So for Abu Dhabi as there were 31 entrants the median is the 16th (okay joint 15th) which was 158, /2 = 79.As the last genuine score was 113, 79 seems a fair stay-in-the-game penalty. As the median reflects the range of race scores it will cope with high or low scoring races where - say last -20 - would sometimes be worse than others.

I also think that to qualify for the default, and to prove the player is still interested, they should contact Pokerman and apologise for not submitting an entry in time, and do this before the race results are published.

ps: how about allowing entries after qualifying, with say 35pts penalty? You could still set a deadline of say 2 hours before race start..

I think qualifying definitely stays as the deadline, there's no real skill in using the qualifying grid.

ps: how about allowing entries after qualifying, with say 35pts penalty? You could still set a deadline of say 2 hours before race start..

I would do that every single time if it was legal - I'd expect to be able to score 200-250 less 35 every race, which isn't bad at all!

In fact, considering the vast gap in my form (#3 in the world vs. #19 out of about thirty) between this competition and the Autosport GP competition - where the main difference is that you can use practice information - I'm strongly considering trying the strategy of taking the FP3 penalty every weekend next year. In which case if you want to stop me, upping the penalties wouldn't be a bad idea.

ps: how about allowing entries after qualifying, with say 35pts penalty? You could still set a deadline of say 2 hours before race start..

I would do that every single time if it was legal - I'd expect to be able to score 200-250 less 35 every race, which isn't bad at all!

In fact, considering the vast gap in my form (#3 in the world vs. #19 out of about thirty) between this competition and the Autosport GP competition - where the main difference is that you can use practice information - I'm strongly considering trying the strategy of taking the FP3 penalty every weekend next year. In which case if you want to stop me, upping the penalties wouldn't be a bad idea.

Maybe you could be the guinea pig to see if the penalties are sufficient?

ps: how about allowing entries after qualifying, with say 35pts penalty? You could still set a deadline of say 2 hours before race start..

I would do that every single time if it was legal - I'd expect to be able to score 200-250 less 35 every race, which isn't bad at all!

In fact, considering the vast gap in my form (#3 in the world vs. #19 out of about thirty) between this competition and the Autosport GP competition - where the main difference is that you can use practice information - I'm strongly considering trying the strategy of taking the FP3 penalty every weekend next year. In which case if you want to stop me, upping the penalties wouldn't be a bad idea.

Maybe you could be the guinea pig to see if the penalties are sufficient?

ps: how about allowing entries after qualifying, with say 35pts penalty? You could still set a deadline of say 2 hours before race start..

I would do that every single time if it was legal - I'd expect to be able to score 200-250 less 35 every race, which isn't bad at all!

In fact, considering the vast gap in my form (#3 in the world vs. #19 out of about thirty) between this competition and the Autosport GP competition - where the main difference is that you can use practice information - I'm strongly considering trying the strategy of taking the FP3 penalty every weekend next year. In which case if you want to stop me, upping the penalties wouldn't be a bad idea.

Maybe you could be the guinea pig to see if the penalties are sufficient?

I might just take you up on that!

Exediron - out of my 7 times, when I received penalty and what pokerman also highlighted - total 123-points (6x18p + 1x15p) - I can conclude it only served me well 1 time (Monaco, if remembering well) - there I gained more than penalty took away after changing.All others I have lost or pretty much same outcome.The greatest backfire came from Baku - everybody scored so few points and then having -18p from already low scores hit especially hard!

So my conclusion is that I would not pursue that approach next season (although I didn´t change every time intentionally - many times I just forgot and had to bear with it).

tim3003 - your idea of having median/2 for particular weekend scores for all forgetters is I think good one. pokerman - I am also in favor of hard-stop deadline after missing qualifying start (and not -35p or else).

Exediron - out of my 7 times, when I received penalty and what pokerman also highlighted - total 123-points (6x18p + 1x15p) - I can conclude it only served me well 1 time (Monaco, if remembering well) - there I gained more than penalty took away after changing.All others I have lost or pretty much same outcome.The greatest backfire came from Baku - everybody scored so few points and then having -18p from already low scores hit especially hard!

You could be right. A hypothetical comparison between what I predicted for Abu Dhabi here (before FP1) and in the Autosport GP Predictor (after FP3) would yield the following final scores:

It's only marginally ahead for the post-FP3 predictions, but that's because I took a crazy gamble in the Pick 10 and didn't put Ricciardo in my predictions. I have a strong feeling that a net score of 150-170 should be achievable most weekends with access to the FP3 information, and if so averaging somewhere around there would be handily enough to put oneself in contention.

ps: how about allowing entries after qualifying, with say 35pts penalty? You could still set a deadline of say 2 hours before race start..

I would do that every single time if it was legal - I'd expect to be able to score 200-250 less 35 every race, which isn't bad at all!

There was one race - I forget which, where my top 10 picks were all bang on for the grid. However come the race I didn't do especially well. Have a look at how often the grid matches the finishing order..

I'm also assuming there would be a large enough penalty to discourage people doing it too often. if not 35 then maybe 50? Anyway, if Il Commendatore says no then no it is!

I do think the FP2 penalty should go up to 20. As FP2 is often run at the same time as quali and the race it's a better indicator of form, and only 3pts extra on the FP1 penalty doesnt seem to reflect that to me..

ps: how about allowing entries after qualifying, with say 35pts penalty? You could still set a deadline of say 2 hours before race start..

I would do that every single time if it was legal - I'd expect to be able to score 200-250 less 35 every race, which isn't bad at all!

In fact, considering the vast gap in my form (#3 in the world vs. #19 out of about thirty) between this competition and the Autosport GP competition - where the main difference is that you can use practice information - I'm strongly considering trying the strategy of taking the FP3 penalty every weekend next year. In which case if you want to stop me, upping the penalties wouldn't be a bad idea.

Maybe you could be the guinea pig to see if the penalties are sufficient?

I might just take you up on that!

Exediron - out of my 7 times, when I received penalty and what pokerman also highlighted - total 123-points (6x18p + 1x15p) - I can conclude it only served me well 1 time (Monaco, if remembering well) - there I gained more than penalty took away after changing.All others I have lost or pretty much same outcome.The greatest backfire came from Baku - everybody scored so few points and then having -18p from already low scores hit especially hard!

So my conclusion is that I would not pursue that approach next season (although I didn´t change every time intentionally - many times I just forgot and had to bear with it).

tim3003 - your idea of having median/2 for particular weekend scores for all forgetters is I think good one. pokerman - I am also in favor of hard-stop deadline after missing qualifying start (and not -35p or else).

I believe Jenson's Understeer benefited greatly early in the season from changing his picks after FP3 after realising his original picks were not very good, later in the season he did the same in Singapore but the leaders crashed out and it was a low scoring round and he ended up with 42 points, a net loss of 75 points on his original picks, it very much took the sails out of his season, he would have won the title, once bitten he never did that again.

ps: how about allowing entries after qualifying, with say 35pts penalty? You could still set a deadline of say 2 hours before race start..

I would do that every single time if it was legal - I'd expect to be able to score 200-250 less 35 every race, which isn't bad at all!

There was one race - I forget which, where my top 10 picks were all bang on for the grid. However come the race I didn't do especially well. Have a look at how often the grid matches the finishing order..

I'm also assuming there would be a large enough penalty to discourage people doing it too often. if not 35 then maybe 50? Anyway, if Il Commendatore says no then no it is!

I do think the FP2 penalty should go up to 20. As FP2 is often run at the same time as quali and the race it's a better indicator of form, and only 3pts extra on the FP1 penalty doesnt seem to reflect that to me..

One big thing I would have against it is that it takes away the skill from the game, you might as well have a robot playing for you, and you could have several people doing it so your not actually standing out from the crowd, were is the achievement?

In this regard the size of the penalty doesn't matter it would be just as much of a case as people not actually playing the game.

One way to deal with the forgotten picks dilemma would be to go one further step towards a F1 points system; the player with the highest score in the round gets 25p for the championship, the next one 18p and so on. This way all rounds would be equally important and missing a round wouldn't ruin your championship.

I'm just throwing this out there, am not sure if it's such a great idea. It would certainly change the dynamic in the competition, for better or worse.

One way to deal with the forgotten picks dilemma would be to go one further step towards a F1 points system; the player with the highest score in the round gets 25p for the championship, the next one 18p and so on. This way all rounds would be equally important and missing a round wouldn't ruin your championship.

I'm just throwing this out there, am not sure if it's such a great idea. It would certainly change the dynamic in the competition, for better or worse.

I agree 100% with what Herb said. If you miss an entry, you don't score points that weekend plain and simple.

I actually like how the points system is right now. You can try and cheat the system as Jenson did pointed out by Pokerman, but once you get bitten, it's a hefty price to pay. If anything all I would discuss is altering the penalty system. For example:

FP1: 10 pointsFP2: 25 pointsFP3/Qualy: 35 points

Because FP1 is often earlier and can be at a inconvenient time sometimes but definitely a hefty penalty should be applied for FP2 since that's where we get a good indication of race pace. FP3 or Qualy should be the same penalty in my opinion and a bigger one.